Arnolfini Portrait: A Deep Dive into Symbolism and Technique
The Arnolfini Portrait
Chronology
Year: 1434
Style
Style: Flemish Gothic
Artist: Jan van Eyck
Technique: Oil on panel
Location: National Gallery (London)
Key Features:
- Perfection of oil painting technique.
- Exceptional detail and brightness.
- Absence of movement and strong symbolism (religious, secular, and portraiture).
- Extraordinary thoroughness.
Three dominant colors: red (clothing and furniture), intense green (bride’s dress), and brown (groom’s robe).
Illumination from the left window highlights the woman and casts the man in partial shadow. Van Eyck’s mastery of oil painting led Vasari to consider him its inventor.
Composition and Space
The composition is framed by the ceiling beams and floor planks, creating a three-dimensional effect. The converging lines of the ceiling, floor, and walls enhance the sense of depth.
Van Eyck masterfully constructs space by aligning three planes: the floor, the back wall, and the two sides (window wall and bed canopy). The convex mirror on the back wall reflects two witnesses, creating a fourth, invisible plane and adding to the realism. Above the mirror, the inscription “Johannes de Eyck fuit hic 1434” (“Jan van Eyck was here”) identifies the two figures in the mirror’s reflection. A hanging lamp focuses the composition.
The painting embodies Flemish painting’s focus on bourgeois subjects. The mastery of perspective and linework highlights the composition’s perfection. The three-dimensionality, achieved through converging lines and the mirror’s reflection, enhances realism. While descriptive in its detailed portrayal, the work also offers an interpretation of the figures’ inner lives.
Technique and Influence
Van Eyck’s technique revolutionized easel painting with its near three-dimensional representation. He broke from the flat structures of Franco-Flemish miniaturists, employing linear and aerial perspective to create unprecedented depth and detail.
Iconography and Meaning
The painting depicts the marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini, a wealthy Italian merchant, and Giovanna Cenami in the bridal chamber.
Symbolism:
- Dog: Fidelity
- Clasped hands: Union of husband and wife
- Raised forearm (levato fides): Taking an oath
- Single candle: God’s presence
- Bare feet: Sacred act, echoing Moses at Sinai
- Rounded belly: Fertility (or possibly pregnancy)
- St. Margaret tassel: Fertility and purity
- Mirror: Spotless marriage
- Rosary: Virgin Mary’s purity
- Fruit: The fruit of the “tree of good and evil,” redeemed by marriage
The work is primarily religious, embodying the sacrament of marriage. It also serves commemorative and decorative purposes, with elements signifying social status.
Legacy
Van Eyck’s influence was extensive. His refined realism became a model for Flemish painting in the latter half of the 15th and 16th centuries. He also influenced, through Lluís Dalmau, late Gothic and early Renaissance painting in Catalonia.
Function
Commissioned by Giovanni Arnolfini, the painting serves commemorative, decorative, and religious functions. It also displays elements signifying social status.